Josh Donaldson, 0 for his past 21, is getting a night off (though he’d certainly be available off the bench if needed). He told me he wouldn’t mind a game off to clear his head a bit. “It would help,” he said. “It’s just one of those stretches.”

Hitting coach Chili Davis told me yesterday that he thinks Donaldson and Jed Lowrie (o for his past 20) are trying to force things a bit. They’re swinging a little earlier in the count than usual, but Donaldson told me he’s swinging at strikes. “So I don’t want to be down 0-2, 1-2,” he said. “So you start hacking more, which I don’t mind. But I’d rather be 2-0.”

The talk all day, of course, has been about Yoenis Cespedes’ extraordinary throw last night to nail Howie Kendrick at the plate from deep in the corner in left. Here’s a video that Cespedes showed me in the clubhouse today:

I asked Cespedes if he’s ever made a better throw and he said in English, “Here? No. In Cuba, yes.”

With reliever Dan Otero interpreting, Cespedes went into more detail about the play. First of all, Cespedes was off balance, how did he get so much on the throw?

“Sometimes I throw off balance better than when my momentum is going forward,” Cespedes said.

Cespedes said he’d been trying to throw Kendrick out at third base – that’s why he bobbled the ball initially, because he was looking at third. Once he lost the ball, Cespedes said, “I didn’t know if I could get him out at home, but I was going to try. And I did.”

He was happy that his family in Florida and in Cuba were able to see the play on their computers, and he said that he got a lot of congratulations from people today.

Yasiel Puig of the Dodgers told reporters today that Cespedes’ throw was “tremendous, one of the best of the season,” but he wouldn’t answer which of them has the better arm. Cespedes also declined to do so. (They’re both incredible, let’s leave it at that.)

Cespedes said when he stole third base in the ninth last night, David Freese asked him, “Is your shoulder OK?”

His teammates remain flabbergasted. Luke Gregerson, who was on the mound, saw Cespedes lose the ball into the corner and ran behind the plate to back up, already assuming a run would score and he’d have to limit the damage from there.

“As I was standing there behind home plate, this giant beach ball is coming in, and I was like, ‘Oh my goodness!’ ” Gregerson said. “That’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. I really thought I was a run, and the ball comes flying in. I was like, ‘How did that get here?’ ”

Catcher Derek Norris said he realized immediately that the ball had the height to reach him – or maybe much more, it was such a heave. “I knew it was right to my chest – or hitting a fan behind me 30 rows up,” he said.

Norris didn’t want to tip Kendrick off that the throw was coming in, and he couldn’t tell initially if there would be a play, anyway. So he stood there casually as if there were no play before the ball landed in his glove. He took one step to his left to block the plate (legal with the ball) and Kendrick ran over his left ankle (he’s OK) but the out was made.

“He kind of messed up the play to begin with – but when he let it go, it was incredible,” Norris said. “It went from being a debacle at the beginning to a tremendous play, so it was even more impressive. Everyone in the stadium was cheering because they thought they’d scored a run, and all of a sudden it was so quiet. Everyone was like, ‘What just happened?’ Luke and I were the same way, like, ‘What?’ Pretty amazing.”

Donaldson, at third, watched the ball sail over his head and, he said, “Honest to God, I thought it was going in the stands. I was waiting for DeNo to turn around and start running back there. And it was right on the money. Absolutely sensational.”